| Prince Pudaisaini gives presentation to students at Grok Bot Night Sept. 3, 2026. Photo by Solida Tan. |
| By Blessing OmoruyiThe Poke Press Students at McNeese State University used artificial intelligence tools to develop projects during the Grok Bot Build Night on Sept. 3 in Drew Hall. According to Prince Pudaisani, the organizer of the event, the opportunity to host came when Fiona Whittington of SpaceXAI for Education invited him to apply for its nationwide Grok Bot Build Night program. After McNeese was accepted, he worked with faculty, university offices and McNeese’s Association for Computing Machinery student organization to arrange the event. The event had 55 check-ins from 59 registrations, according to Pudaisaini. Students used Grok Bot and Cursor to develop projects, share ideas and work through problems together. “I wanted students at McNeese to actually build with AI, not just hear people talk about it,” Pudaisaini said. One project, called “Back to Class,” was designed to sync information with a calendar. Pudasaini said students also worked on an autonomous team project and spent the evening experimenting with Grok and helping one another troubleshoot. Ning Zhang, head of McNeese’s Department of Engineering and Computer Science, said Pudasaini brought the proposal to the department. “You could give the credit to the student,” Zhang said. The department supported the event and helped arrange a venue for the session. Pudasaini said he wanted the event to be open to all majors, including those with no coding or AI experience. “AI is not going to affect only Computer Science,” he said. “Business, engineering, education, health care, communication and many other fields will use these technologies differently, so I wanted different perspectives in the room.” Pudasaini also reported registrations connected to Louisiana Tech University and SOWELA Technical Community College. McNeese President Mike Reese and Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Kedrick Nicholas attended the event, along with several faculty members. After the event, Pudaisani said seeing participants work together was one of his main takeaways. “For me, the most valuable part was seeing people from different backgrounds working together and actually building,” Pudasaini said. “That kind of hands-on collaboration was exactly what I hoped the Build Night would create.” Pudasaini credited Zhang and the Dean of the College of Science and Engineering, Srinivasan Ambatipati, with coordinating logistics, Tanya Brewster with marketing, Emily Smith with outreach to international students and Calie Rolfe with securing the venue. Civil engineering student Yogesh Khadka volunteered and helped manage registration and check-in. |
